Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1996 - 24

Avariant of the explicit panel scenography is the creation
of spaces menacingly walled in by bare walls or grating. The
empty space usually contains objects or constructions with
threatening or alienating connotations. For Laszlo Guyrko's
Electra, My Love! (Ostrava, 1983) [Fig. 3], Roszkopfova created a box-like white interior into which variously sized boulder-shaped objects were lowered, carried, or thrown, symbols
of oppressive, mindless force that blocked entrances or othel~
wise impeded and restricted the human acti\~ty within the
blank walls. In Brecht's Baal (Ostrava, 1986) [Fig. 4], much
of the action occurred in relation to walls of metal grating as
well as wooden boards and even stuffed sacks that echoed the
boulders in Electra. Dostojevski's Crime and Punishment
(Ostrava, 1992) [Fig. 5] had a rectangular, metallic cage-like
enclosure surrounding a rotatable unit set for various interior
scenes.
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FIGURE
sliding panels, Christine's private chanlbers. Below this upstage upper level was a chamber containing a series of busts of
the other illustrious Marmon dead.
As presented in this production, nothing that I have mentioned had any source in 0' leill's stage directions, but such
novelties are typical of the ways in which director and
scenographer felt free to adapt 0' leill's text. It was an example, perhaps, of action scenography for a revival of a large
scale classic. Instead of a stage composition of varied elements designed to create a recognizable, logical, and aesthetically pleasing image of reality, Roszkopfova brought together a
deliberately illogical cluster of realistic but deconstructed elements (Le., torn from their familiar contexts) to form an almost surreal assemblage of objects that would not co-exist in
any space other than on a stage.
A particularly interesting exanlple of Roszkopfova's re-
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Roszkopfova's Crime and Punishment.
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Roszkopfova's i\louming Becomes Electra. The scaffolding at stage left
partially masks the stage left statue, not visible in this photo. The
blatant spotlights reinforced the conscious theatricality of the staging.
Amore complex setting appeared in O'Neill's post-Civil
War tragedy, MOlll'1/ing Becomes Electra (Bll1o, 1988) [Fig.
6], the April premiere of which I attended. It was directed by
Zdenek Kaloc, one of Roszkopfova's other favored directors.
(See note 26.) Within completely anachronistic metal-sheeted
walls with sliding panels, Marta Roszkopfova created an indoor-outdoor simultaneous setting that had the ~rtue of making possible a Shakespeare-like flow from scene to scene on a
curtainless stage. Alarger than life-sized monumental statue of
the seated patriarch, Abe Mannon, was situated at stage right
(its pose an echo of Lincoln's statue in the Lincoln Memorial);
its pedestal contained a roll-out double bed (the elder
Mannons'). An equally oversized standing statue of Abe's
brother, David Mannon, was at stage left. Both statues were illuminated by spotlights down center aimed upward from just
below stage level and openly controlled by the actors, as were
other special lighting effects. The third permanent on-stage
object was a rolling metal scaffolding unit used primarily as a
stairway to the upper rear gallery level, which housed, behind
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cent work was seen in a dramatization of a classic early twentieth centlll)' Czech novel, AYear in the CoulltlJ', by the MrStfk
brothers [Fig. 7]. I saw it in Prague's National Theatre in November, I993, when it was well into its repertory run. The dramatization and direction were by Miroslav Krobot, a third,
more recent director in Marta Roszkopfova's favored circle.
The play, which had its premiere in the spring of 1993, won
the prize for the best Czech production of the year. To create
the most useful and yet expressive spatial, ~sual context for
the large cast, multi-scened flow of village life at the nlrn of the
centul)', with its criss-crossed lives and seasonal rinlals,
Roszkopfova once again set up a "container," this time of
roughly texnlred, whitewashed, undecorated walls with regularly spaced, plain doorways. Dominating this neutral space
was to be a massive tree trunk situated slightly stage left of
stage center and meant to be present throughout the play. In
one of her early notes to the director, Roszkopfova wrote "I
see a tree grO\~ng through this room, its walls, floor, even
ceiling-time-time-a tree is eternity. It's a piece of na-